Academic Partner
Johns Hopkins Global Alliance of Perioperative Professionals
AthleticsMD® and the Johns Hopkins Global Alliance of Perioperative Professionals (JHU-GAPP) share a common mission: closing the gap on healthcare disparities by training providers, strengthening health systems, and building the infrastructure that makes safe surgery possible in the places that need it most.
About JHU-GAPP
Closing the gap on healthcare disparities.
JHU-GAPP operates within the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine. Its mission is to provide relevant, appropriate, affordable, and sustainable solutions to improve anesthesia and perioperative care in austere environments through training, research, clinical care improvement, and the dissemination of knowledge.
The alliance works across West Africa and beyond, partnering with ministries of health, teaching hospitals, and international organizations to address the structural barriers that prevent safe surgical and critical care delivery in low-resource settings. GAPP's work spans provider-level education, infrastructure development including medical oxygen systems and solar energy, infection control, critical care training, and perioperative quality improvement.
"Closing the gap on healthcare disparities."
GAPP's focus is meaningful and sustainable health system strengthening for low-resource health systems that care for vulnerable populations. The work is not charity. It is the construction of durable clinical capacity that outlasts any single training visit or equipment donation.
JHU-GAPP motto and operating principleLeadership
The physicians behind the partnership.
AthleticsMD® and JHU-GAPP are led by physicians whose clinical and academic work spans cardiac anesthesia, critical care, global surgery, and perioperative medicine.
Dr. Imaobong Chinedozi
Director, JHU-GAPP · Chief Medical Officer, AthleticsMD®
Cardiac anesthesiologist, critical care physician, and Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Chinedozi leads global health systems development in West Africa, focusing on infrastructure development, provider training, and quality improvement research. She received a Johns Hopkins StAAR Mentored Training Award for her work assessing the impact of increased oxygen access at Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital in The Gambia, a 2023 ASA Professional Mentoring Grant, and recently served as a panelist at the Consortium of Universities for Global Health Conference presenting the G4 Alliance's WHO-supported multinational surgical registry.
Dr. Ifeanyi David Chinedozi
Regional Director, JHU-GAPP · Founder and Chairman, AthleticsMD®
General surgery resident at the University of Maryland Medical Center and the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, with a Johns Hopkins postdoctoral research fellowship in cardiac surgery. Dr. Chinedozi co-authored statewide opioid overdose prevention guidelines across 26 hospitals, received President Clinton's award for extraordinary leadership, and co-leads the GAPP partnership operations across Liberia and The Gambia alongside the clinical buildout of Maryland's first independent CORF.
Dr. John B. Sampson
Founding Executive Director, JHU-GAPP
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins, critical care specialist, neuroanesthesiologist, and obstetric anesthesiologist. Dr. Sampson founded GAPP and has led global health engagement across Africa for more than three decades, from establishing critical care training programs in Sierra Leone and Nigeria to leading the AIRS project with the Society of Critical Care Medicine. He is a board member of the G4 Alliance for Global Surgery, Obstetrics, Trauma and Anesthesiology, and founder and board chairman of the Institute of Global Perioperative Care.
Active work
What the partnership delivers on the ground.
Africa Infrastructure Relief and Support (AIRS)
A collaboration between the Society of Critical Care Medicine, JHU-GAPP, and the Institute of Global Perioperative Care to strengthen medical oxygen and energy infrastructure in West African hospitals. The project identifies and addresses oxygen-related needs, including hospital-based infrastructure, oxygen-generating plants, and solar energy systems, across The Gambia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Funded by a grant from Direct Relief.
SCCM · Direct Relief · Liberia · The Gambia · Sierra LeonePerioperative provider training
GAPP and AthleticsMD® have trained roughly 200 perioperative providers since 2022 across partner sites in Liberia and The Gambia, covering critical care, anesthesia safety, infection control, mechanical ventilation, and perioperative nursing. Training is delivered through the Society of Critical Care Medicine's Fundamental Critical Care Support curriculum and simulation-based education programs.
Liberia · The Gambia · 200+ providers trainedOxygen access and impact research
Dr. Ima Chinedozi's StAAR-funded research assesses the impact of increased oxygen access at Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital in The Gambia. A peer-reviewed qualitative study on provider and patient perspectives on oxygen scarcity at F.J. Grant Hospital in Liberia was published in the Journal of Global Surgery in December 2025, co-authored by Imaobong Chinedozi, Ifeanyi Chinedozi, and John Sampson.
Published · JOGS · StAAR Award · The Gambia · LiberiaG4 Alliance multinational surgical registry
A WHO-supported multinational surgical registry, presented by Dr. Ima Chinedozi at the 2026 Consortium of Universities for Global Health Conference, entering its pilot phase in more than ten low and middle income countries. The registry is designed to capture surgical outcomes data at the district hospital level, where most of the world's unmet surgical need sits.
WHO · CUGH 2026 · 10+ countriesPartner sites
Where the work happens.
F.J. Grant Memorial Hospital
Greenville, Sinoe County, Liberia. One of the early implementation sites for the AIRS project. Provider training, oxygen infrastructure, and solar energy deployment. Co-authored research published in the Journal of Global Surgery.
Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital
Banjul, The Gambia. Site of the StAAR-funded oxygen access impact assessment led by Dr. Ima Chinedozi. Provider training and critical care capacity building.
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland. GAPP is housed within the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The university provides IRB pathways, faculty appointments, publication channels, and institutional research infrastructure.
How the partnership works
Clinical care here. Health system building there. Same physicians.
AthleticsMD® funds its global health work through clinical revenue generated in Maryland. The physicians who lead prehabilitation, rehabilitation, and preventive care at AthleticsMD® are the same physicians who train providers and build infrastructure in West Africa through JHU-GAPP and Healing Vessels International.
For AthleticsMD® patients, the partnership means your care is delivered by physicians whose clinical judgment has been tested in the most resource-constrained environments on earth, where you cannot rely on technology to compensate for a missed clinical decision. For the communities GAPP serves, it means the partnership has a durable funding source that does not depend on a single grant cycle.
AthleticsMD® is the clinical and commercial operating entity. Healing Vessels International is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit hub through which tax-deductible philanthropic support flows. JHU-GAPP is the academic affiliation providing university-based research infrastructure, IRB oversight, and peer-reviewed publication channels. The three entities work as one system.
Support the work or learn more.
If you are a clinician, researcher, funder, or philanthropic partner interested in perioperative care in low-resource settings, we want to hear from you. If you are a patient, know that your care at AthleticsMD® directly supports this mission.